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HRS §702-223

When helping someone commit a crime makes you guilty of the result

If you help someone commit a crime and the crime causes a specific result, you can be charged with that result if you had the required mental state. You cannot avoid responsibility just because you only intended a different or lesser result.

everyone

The statute, as written — Liability for conduct of another; complicity with respect to the result

When causing a particular result is an element of an offense, an accomplice in the conduct causing the result is an accomplice in the commission of that offense, if the accomplice acts, with respect to that result, with the state of mind that is sufficient for the commission of the offense. [L 1972, c 9, pt of §1; gen ch 1993] COMMENTARY ON §702-223 This section is intended to make clear that a defendant charged, on the basis of the defendant's complicity in the conduct of another, with causing a particular result will not be allowed to escape accountability for the result because the defendant solicited or aided, etc., a different or more limited result if the defendant had the requisite state of mind with respect to the actual result. Thus, for example, one who urges a driver to increase the speed of an automobile, disregarding known risks to pedestrians, would stand in the same position as the driver on a charge of reckless homicide and would not be allowed to defend on the ground that one solicited the violation of the traffic law and not the homicide law.
Read the official text at capitol.hawaii.gov ↗as published Jan 6, 2026our copy taken Aug 20, 2026

LawTrove is not legal advice. The summary above is a computer-generated restatement — the authoritative text is the official version linked above.